About the High Line

The High Line is a new public park, built on an elevated 1930s rail structure located on Manhattan's West Side. It runs from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District to 34th Street. The first section of the High Line opened to the public in June 2009. The High Line is property of the City of New York, and is maintained and operated by the non-profit Friends of the High Line, in partnership with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation.

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We’re pleased to bring you news of another major milestone towards the full preservation of the High Line at the West Side Rail Yards. The Department of City Planning announced today that it has certified the City’s application for approval of future acquisition of the High Line above 30th Street.

This certification kicks off the seven-month Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), during which there will be several opportunities for public input. Along the way, we hope you will come out and show your support for the High Line’s preservation, as you have so many times before. We will push for the City to take ownership of the High Line and ensure that its future is determined by the public.

Though today’s announcement does not guarantee preservation of the High Line, the City’s move toward High Line acquisition is a major positive step towards achieving our ultimate goals: full preservation of the historic structure north of 30th Street, including the 10th Avenue Spur, and completion of the High Line project all the way to 34th Street.

American Coneflower in bloom below the Diller-von Furstenberg Sundeck.

Feeling under the weather? According to High Line gardener Kyla Dippong, the park is a “veritable pharmacy.” Many of Section 1’s 210 species of plants offer simple remedies, quite a few of which were used by Native Americans long before the advent of the pharmacy as we know it today.

As you continue to battle the cold and flu season, here are a few of our favorite medicinal plants to keep in mind, most of which can be found easily in your local drugstore or herbal remedy shop (but NOT by picking them off the High Line).

This weekend, the New York Times ran a profile of international architectural photographer Iwan Baan. Iwan took a beautiful series of High Line photos in our first season, and we agree that there’s something groundbreaking about his style. Fred Bernstein of the Times writes:

Mr. Baan sees buildings as backdrops for his photographs of people, he said during a recent visit to New York. Looking at a picture of the new Cooper Union building in the East Village, designed by Mr. Mayne, Mr. Baan said, “It’s about the woman shuffling down the street.” His work owes as much to Diane Arbus and Henri Cartier-Bresson as to Julius Shulman or Ezra Stoller, the pre-eminent architectural photographers of the late 20th century.

Video journalist Larry Closs visited the High Line this fall and put together this lovely little travel piece. He highlights some of the park’s most popular features, and talks with Co-Founder Robert Hammond about the inspiration behind the park.

The staff of Friends of the High Line was deeply saddened to learn of the death of Clare Weiss, the Parks Department’s Curator of Public Art, on January 11, 2010. During her tenure at Parks from 2005 to 2009, Clare helped organize 128 outdoor public art exhibitions, as well as 36 exhibits at the Arsenal Gallery in Central Park. She was a charter member of the High Line’s Public Art Advisory Committee, which selected the High Line’s first public art installation—Spencer Finch’s The River That Flows Both Ways. Clare worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make this city culturally richer and more dynamic. Her contributions and her spirit will be sorely missed.

If you visit the park and peer through the chain-link fence at 20th Street, you’ll notice some work happening on the surface of the High Line in the blocks to the north. The construction team has installed wire mesh above the lower (structural) concrete surface. The mesh provides bonding, flexibility, and additional strength to a 2″ – 3″ layer of “screed concrete” on the deck. This screed concrete will then be waterproofed, and the landscape installed on top.

The latest on the High Line’s next section: the construction team recently removed FOURTEEN TONS of steel up at 30th Street to make way for the future stairs and elevator.

When Section 2 opens, 30th Street will be the northernmost access point on the High Line, at least until the Rail Yards section is built. The entrance is located right at “the curve”, where the High Line begins its iconic sweep westward towards the Hudson River.

Like the stairs at Gansevoort Street and 14th Street, the 30th Street stairs will cut through the structure, bringing visitors face-to-face with the High Line’s steel beams and rivets. Click through for a rendering.